AMD vs. Intel: Battery Life Investigated

BadTrip

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are you blind

"Considering these systems are as close as we can get to "identical", AMD takes a real pounding in battery life testing. The closest result (the idle test) has the Intel platform providing 20% more battery life, while the best Intel results (DVD playback and heavy web surfing) give about 35% more battery life. Averaging all five results, the Intel-based NV58 delivered 28% more battery life than the AMD-based NV52. Ouch."
 

jennyh

Splendid
No I'm not blind. Do you realise how flawed that 'review' is?

The intel has an igp that can barely draw lines on a screen whereas the AMD has the best IGP in existence. You pay a price for that sort of performance, in this case you pay it in power draw.

If they had to show gaming benchmarks in that, you'd see a line of zero's for the intel's fps and you'd see a bunch of low 20's for the AMD. The reason for that is the AMD can *actually* play games and the intel can't, at all. Just because that is intel's best effort at graphics doesn't make it close, as the review clearly stated :-

On the other hand, the AMD platform comes with much better integrated graphics, so if you would like to do a bit of 3D gaming on occasion (at low to medium detail levels) AMD easily wins the graphics benchmarks.

Do you think that sort of power comes for free?
 
Arent there new 45nm parts coming? I thought there was. And I know theres the new igp. So, lets be fair here, in ttwo months, lets compare AMDs system after all the new parts vs Ibtels last gen not this one
 

jennyh

Splendid
More than half of that AMD's power draw will be coming from the HD 3200 igp, which is actually pretty competent at running modern games at low settings. It is by far and away the most advanced part on either machine.

That reviewer should be hanged at dawn for such a ludicrous comparison. How do these idiots even get jobs when they clearly have no clue?
 

BadTrip

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Saying that the intel cannot play a dvd is an absolute lie is my point.
 

jennyh

Splendid
The only 'lie' is that reviewer claiming that those systems are as close as they can get to 'identical'.

How can that be the case when one is a low spec gaming/HD laptop and the other is...I dunno what the intel is supposed to be? It can't game and it's HD playback will be worse than anyone could reasonably be expected to accept.

Would you do a power draw review when one system had a discrete gpu and one didn't? Because that is practically the difference between those igp's. No wonder there are no benchmarks, it would have shown just how flawed that review is when the intel couldn't score double figures in any game.
 
Hold on, everyone. Think, This may be dirty pool here. How long before we see 45nm mobile cpus?
My point is, compare ANY 65nm AMD part, which we all know, as well as Anand does, they dont come close to AMDs 45nm cpus, and does ok against Intels cpu at 45.
 

jennyh

Splendid


And I bet it won't be a seperate review like this one.

If Anand did a 'laptop gaming' review and use that garbage intel GMA then there would be an uproar, justifiably so. Doing a battery life comparison when one of the machines has the best igp around is every bit as bad.
 

BadTrip

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I totally understand your point, but the point of the article is to compare what is available now.
 

jennyh

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That was my first thought jaydee. The new AMD's will be out in what, a month and they are gonna be targetting battery life as a major selling point. What a surprise to see Anandtech doing a battery life review with power hungry AMD parts. I wonder how much that cost intel's bribery department.
 

BadTrip

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the benchmarks are being added to the existing article.
 
Ya know what I see here? Listen up. Everyone knows how they just thew anything 65nm away, didnt even try. Well, I see the same thing here. Theyre waiting on 32nm, duals or not. I think thats their plansm ands its hurting them.
Theyre soo hurting if they cant diversify to this level, and at least come up with something theyve already got, with a lil more work and time
 

belial2k

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I hate it when people take articles clearly titled as to the purpose of the article, and then try to make it about something else....and then claim bias and a poor review. The article was about BATTERY LIFE, NOT GAMING BENCHMARKS!! You even admit it pointed out the amd was the better gamer...so why are you complaining. People reading the article will want to know which has better battery life, not which is the better gaming laptop. Most people don't even try to game on laptops, so that is of less concern to most people than how long they can go without plugging in. I just wish AMD enthusiast would stop inventing reasons to get mad...it just doesn't make sense why you have such a big chip on the shoulder.
 

jennyh

Splendid
The reviewer deliberately made it out that those two laptops were 'almost identical', which is complete and utter RUBBISH. How can that be the case when one has the best igp you can get and the other has an intel igp? And one has a 45nm cpu compared to an older, more power hungry 65nm cpu?

Shouldn't they have waited a few weeks until the newer 45nm AMD laptops are out?

It's as clear a case of an intel bought and paid for review you'll see. Intel know AMD are weeks from releasing much better laptops so they bought this review at anandtech. There is no other explanation for Anandtech suddenly deciding to do a battery life 'review' at this time.

As for your point on most people not trying to game on laptops, 1) You have no clue what most people do on laptops and 2) Most people sit with their laptop on their lap plugged into the wall so who cares about battery life anyway?
 

jennyh

Splendid
Quote from the author of the review :-

I've run all the benchmarks; I'm just writing the main article at this point and it should be done for Friday. In terms of gaming, as I mentioned in this piece, the AMD solution is substantially faster - anywhere from 50% to 200% faster, with the average being around 125% faster. (The 50% comes from Empire: Total War, incidentally.) To be honest, I was actually surprised at the number of games the Intel IGP could manage to *load* - last time I looked at that on a GMA IGP there were only a few modern games that would try to load at all. LOL

Identical? When one of them has an IGP that is substantially superior what did they expect? It's a complete farce of a review and you know it. It consumes about 1/3rd more power because it has a 125% faster igp...duh???
 



Actually, you lied too by saying the Intel one won't play a DVD.

JennyH, you have some very good points that the systems are NOT identical, one system provides more functionality. I really would like to have seen benchmarks of everything in this article so it would demonstrate the advantages of the AMD IGP.

JennyH, you need to tone down the rabid AMD support, you have a great point here but it gets lost in your abrasive presentation.
 

belial2k

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"As for your point on most people not trying to game on laptops, 1) You have no clue what most people do on laptops and 2) Most people sit with their laptop on their lap plugged into the wall so who cares about battery life anyway?"
Please show me one link from this site or any other where someone has asked for a gaming machine and a laptop was recommended. If possible people will plug in, but the whole point of a laptop is portability, where often you can't plug in...classrooms, wifi hotspots, job sites, in the car, ect have limited outlets available....
Yes, the reviewer might have overstated the similarity a little, but he went out of his way to point out exactly what you are complaining about....and he never claimed they were "identical". Once again you deliberately ignore the purpose of the article to find a reason to claim bias. If this had been an article on which one was the better gamer would you then come running with hysterical claims that it was ignoring the fact the intel has a longer battery life, even if it pointed it out in the article? NO, of course you wouldn't.
You keep quoting the article where he pointed out the AMD has a stronger IGP and then saying "but the AMD has a better IGP"....yeah, just like the reviewer said. Soooo....if anyone wants that they know which one to buy because of this review. But, if they are reading the article based on the title and purpose of the article, they are probably more interested in which solution will give them the most battery life, even if it comes at the sacrifice of a weaker IGP.
Since you can't argue the facts of the article, you try to manufacture something to make it look like AMD was somehow slighted. I am tired of seeing this from AMD enthusiast. I have nothing against AMD, and often recommend them for budget builds. But you let your own predjudice blind you to the instances when intel can be better for someone else. In your eyes Intel is never better in any circumstance, and the whole world is out to get AMD. You do your cause a disservice when you post things like this because YOU make AMD and AMD enthusiast look bad, not the article.
 
And, if Anand does do 1, itll be just 1, you can bet on that, as Im sure he wont run a preview on a review as was done here.
Its not like it was mandated, like weve seen with some gfx cards, where a preview showing a limite amount of games could only be shown due to NDA. I question the motives behind running this preview of the review
 

jennyh

Splendid


It's not rabid AMD support, the problem is we consistently see garbage reviews like this on site after site. The last one was here on THG when they compared a badly prebuilt AMD to a hand picked part i7, then chose games that suited nvidia (which was of course in the i7), then came to the conclusion that a 955 BE was bottlenecking a 4890...wtf?

Now Anandtech come out with this garbage, dress it up as a battery life comparison between two 'almost identical' laptops....which frankly couldn't be further from the truth. You wonder why some of us get pissed at the bias? These discrepancies have to be pointed out.

The really sad thing here is, if you wanted to play any games at all, the AMD would be a much better choice at $80 less. Any game, that intel cannot play games to save itself and it's HD playback will be much worse than the AMD's also. What does that leave? Ah yes, battery life. Battery life for doing what? Surfing? If that's all you want, you can get it a helluva lot cheaper than $580, but it's about as useful as that intel laptop gets.